Thanks for sharing that—I can see you’ve put a lot of thought into this, and your hypothesis about Herodian influence is definitely interesting. I agree that we should approach supernatural claims critically and consider the political context behind religious movements.

That said, I’d apply Occam’s Razor here. I’m not evaluating the origins of Pauline Christianity, and I’m not suggesting his experiences were supernatural. His “road to Damascus” moment could’ve been anything from an epileptic event to a hallucination, a nervous breakdown, or some other kind of intense religious experience. The exact cause isn’t the point. What matters is that he claimed that was the source of his inspiration, and that claim shaped what became Pauline Christianity.

Whether Paul’s teachings were derived from his own experiences with a “risen” Jesus or influenced by a Herodian plot, the fact remains that Pauline Christianity diverged sharply from the teachings and practices of Jesus’s family and closest followers in Jerusalem. That’s the core issue for me—not just how Paul arrived at his message, but how far that message drifted from the original “Way.”

So while I find your theory intriguing, I’d argue that the simplest explanation still holds: whatever the source, Paul’s gospel was something new, distinct from the tradition Jesus’s earliest followers maintained.